Merry Christmas, Leonie. I guess I'm a bit early, considering that it is December first, but either way, merry Christmas! Time flies by so fast, but it's really nice too! I hope that you like it! I have not written a lot in the past with Nyo!Russia, but I hope that I wrote her well. I remembered that we both shipped this pairing this way, and I couldn't help but write this for you! I hope that as Christmas and other holidays draw closer, that they go really well for you! It's hard to believe how much time as passed! I'm really happy to have written this for you as you really are a great friend, and I love talking to you everyday through PMs. I'm really glad I met you, and one day, I hope to see you in person. Thank you for being a great friend, and I hope your day goes really well!
She smiled at the warm way his fingers folded around hers.
It soothed her as after every mistake she'd made and every manipulative tactic used against her and she used on others that she was loved and forgiven.
Long lives could mean the chance to make many mistakes over and over again, and Anya had made her fair share of them.
She felt her eyes follow up Alfred's arms to his beaming smile and remembered a time when they only seemed to know how to glare at each other and the best ways to tear each other down with both physical and mental means and sometimes without having to be near the other.
Anya wondered when he'd chosen to forgive her as her memories fell foggy to when she forgave him.
Perhaps his little smile when he was near his brother that was so genuine despite his sometimes false cheer in other cases that she'd saw that day years ago changed her mind from him being as cold and unloving as could be or may be it was the way he looked among his people, so supportive and almost care free.
She remembered the way he shone that day among his people when she blended in almost like a tourist would.
Anya supposed that it didn't matter despite how much she cared now and probably do to that as one truly began to care far before one really knew why.
She smiled as she listened to his excited chatter over some new hot dog place that had opened up, Cold War days long forgotten.
Anya knew though that he probably still had the nightmares that she sometimes struggled with, painted with new faces and scenes that were inspired off of real moments together recently as if the Cold War were to return just as harshly as it had arrived.
She tried to forget those wretched screams that had left her throat those mornings and nights and tried to forget the way Alfred's face was painted into a nasty scowl.
He was hers now, and she doubted that sweet Alfred who sometimes seemed too young for all that he'd experienced would turn on her like that.
The past was simply a drawer of old memories that often left scars and even gasps as it was relived through nightmares or the passing thought; terror had a way of spreading though it also had a way of sticking around.
Anya gripped his hand tighter and asked about the owners of the new business, eager to escape such memories if only for a moment.
There would be arguments and nightmares and difficulties, but she knew even other nations fought those as they built up new relationships with others based off of emotions that often felt too human and desires that stretched farther than politics.
Still a part of her worried over their future, and yet all she could do now was cherish the look on his face when he tried their hot dogs for the first time and thrill over his heartbeat as she danced with him, held close under the shiny new lights of a new dance studio.
Anya would always hold these memories close to her heart regardless of whatever life throws at them next and regardless of the pain of the past as true love whether felt blossomingly or fleetingly meant the world to one who'd known her fair share of scars.